Suttree(77)

What is it?

Aint dead in there are ye?

No.

Aint seen ye about. Allowed ye was dead.

I’m all right.

He lay in the dark listening to the crazed railroader breathing beyond the door. The old man muttered something but Suttree could not make it out.

What? he called.

He was blowing his nose.

Suttree got up and scratched about on the table for a match and lit the lamp and came to the door in the shorts and sweater he’d worn to bed.

Hidy, said the old man.

Come on in.

Was you in bed?

It’s all right. Come on in.

The old man entered stiffly in his striped overalls, his shadow bobbing and looming anxiously behind him. Cold in here, he said.

Suttree set the lamp on the table and went to the stove to poke the fire up.

What happent to your head?

I got hit with a floorbuffer.

Say you did?

What time is it?

Could you not hear it comin?

No. What time is it?

He was hauling at the chain, looking about the dim little cabin. What are you up to?

I was just on my way in. Thought I better check on ye, aint seen ye and all. I thought ye’d died on me.

You and old Hooper are just alike. All you either one talk about is dying. What do you do, sit around and cheer one another up?

Oh no. I see him seldomer and seldomer. A man gets to my age he thinks about dyin some. It’s only natural.

What, dying or thinking about it?

Do what?

I thought you were going to tell me what time it was. The old man tilted the watch in his hand toward the lamp. I caint see good in here, he said.

You want a glass of milk?

I dont use it thank ye.

Suttree poured his tumbler full and drank and regarded the old man. I make it eight forty-six, the old man said.

Suttree rubbed his eyes.

We all got to go sometime.

He looked at the old man.

I said we all got to go sometime. You get older you think about it, Young feller like you.

The old man gestured in the air with his hand, you couldnt tell what it meant. He sat in the chair by the table, still holding the watch in the palm of his hand.

You want a cup of coffee?

No, no. I’m just on my way in.

Suttree leaned back against the wall and sipped the milk. He could feel the air in the cracks like cold wires. The old man sat there, seemed transfixed by the lampflame like a ponderous cat. After a while he heaved up his shoulders and sighed and put away his watch. He rose and adjusted his cap. Well, he said. If I’m goin to cross that river tonight I’d as well start now.

You take care.

He looked about the little cabin. Well, he said. I’m satisfied you aint dead anyways. I’ll look for ye on the river.

Okay.

Suttree didnt get up from the bed and the old man raised his hand and went out into the night. A few minutes later Suttree heard the dogs start up along Front Street and later still when he wiped the water from the glass and peered out he could see the old man on the bridge, or rather he could see the faintest figure disturb the globes of light one by one slowly until the farther dark had taken him.

In the morning he went down the river again to run his lines. Two boys from the riverfront down off the foot of Fifteenth Street had just come in. When Suttree passed they were handing up a string of carp wet and yellow with rubber mouths sucking. One of them chained the boat with an old bicycle lock and they moved up the bank in their cheap black shoes, stopping now and again to pluck the winter nettles from their trouserlegs. Suttree raised his hand and they nodded, tossing their heads like small vicious horses and going on across the tracks.

His own lines came up heavy with dead fish. He cut the droppers one by one and watched the pale shapes flare and rock and sink from sight. He tied on new baited snells and recovered the current with the oars. He looked at the gray sky but it did not change and the river was always the same.





In just spring the goatman came over the bridge, a stout old man in overalls, long gray hair and beard. Sunday morning before anyone was about. A clicking of little cleft hooves on the concrete and the goats in their homemade harness drawing tandem carts cobbled up out of old signs and kindlingwood and topped with tattered canvas, horned goatskulls, biblical messages, the whole thing rattling along on elliptical wheels like a whimsical pulltoy for children. Loose goats flowed around the man and the wagon. A lantern swung from the hinder axletree and a small goat face peered from the tailboard, a young goat who is wearied and must ride. The goatman strode in his heavy shoes and raised his nose to test the air, the cart rumbled and clanked on its iron wheels and they entered the town.

Goats fanned over the post office lawn on Main Street and began to graze, the goatman watching them paternally, hiking along at the head of his curious circus. An officer of the law spoke to him:

Get them damned goats off the grass.